“There are two kinds of Apple reporters,” remarks Dan Lyons in his awe-inspiring thrashing of CNBC’s Jim Goldman. “There are those that accept the company will lie to them, and then there are those that get snowballed and punked, like your bureau chief here. You should apologize to Gizmodo: they were right and you were wrong.”

Paraphrased from a CNBC segment on Steve Jobs’ health, Lyons got himself banned from CNBC for the public whipping. But he’s closed the book on Goldman’s credibility in severe style, making CNBC look not just like a victim of Apple’s spin machine, but a willing participant in attacks on rivals that beat it to the story.

After Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo wrote that Jobs’ health was declining rapidly, Goldman responded that it was wrong and that the Apple CEO was fine. Not only was he incorrect, but it turns out that other sources had told him otherwise: he chose to toe the line until Jobs stepped down.

Reading that third paragraph, the cynic in me wonders if Goldman was neck-deep in Apple stock that he was trying to unload first. I could understand downplaying a potentially false rumor, but he actually made an unfounded assertion even with evidence to the contrary. This has the whiff of conflict-of-interest to me.

@the topic: Dan’s argument doesn’t come off as a smackdown even remotely like, say, Jon Stewart on Crossfire, since Dan personally attacks Goldman more than he goes after the root of the problem, media capitulation to Apple PR.

But Goldman probably wasn’t the one making the decision to hold information – he has gatekeeping bosses, producers, moderators, hosts who make sure he won’t go down that road, intentionally or accidentally.

Goldman’s damned and/or fired if he says something – stocks plummet, and considering Jobs’ historical response to health rumors, Apple just calls him out for rumormongering and blacklists him and/or CNBC – and, as we see here, damned if he doesn’t say something. It’s an unenviable position. Dan Lyons doesn’t have that to worry about – if Jobs has a Nixonesque enemies list, Lyons is pretty high up on it.

The moral of the story is to not cover Apple for a living and expect to be popular, unless you plan to do so with maximum venom, which is equally useless to consumers, stockholders and the general public. They’re a company that loves to play gotcha at every level.

They banned him? Sure it was a bit snarky but Dan told it like it is. The dude ignored the obvious, panned everyone around them and was wrong.
To ban him is crazy. All it’ll mean is you end up with pundits who espouse your point of view, you stifle robust debate (ok this wasn’t exactly robust i know) and then you may as well call yourself Fox News